


Perfect, Beautiful You

by CopperBeech



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Body Image, Borderline crack, Chubby Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Don't copy to another site, Established Relationship, Farce, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Jealous Crowley (Good Omens), Jealousy, M/M, Romantic Comedy, They're still idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21526528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech
Summary: Aziraphale is being disquietingly surreptitious. Crowley, being a demon, defaults to seething jealousy. Not surprisingly, they’ve both got hold of the wrong end of the stick.He wakes up for the third time when the sun is well past the zenith and rinses out a mouth that tastes like the bottom of a birdcage. Somehow, not sobering up and letting what he’d drunk between one club and another (and another) work its villainy on him seemed like the punishment he deserved for ever being enough of an idiot to think that an angel would be content with him. His pit-blasted eyes, his volatile heart, his half-serpent nature.On the other hand, Aziraphale isn’t being honest with him.They’re going to have this out.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 44
Kudos: 249





	Perfect, Beautiful You

**Author's Note:**

> Something vaguely like this had been rattling around in the back of my head, and I ran with it after seeing a callout by @cocoa-and-crepes on Tumblr for fics where Aziraphale is explicitly chubby. Well, of course he is, he’s well upholstered and soft and adorably so, and that is a hill I am prepared to die on. (As a high-strung ginger, I have standing to speak.) 
> 
> It shares elements with “Mr. Lonelyhearts,” which I posted a short while back, but it’s its own thing.

“Well, if you need to change, I’m sure I could make it… what? Two o’clock tomorrow? Ah – that ought to work. Jolly good, then. Look forward to it.”

This is not something Crowley expects to hear when he enters the shop: Aziraphale on the phone (he’s cradling it as Crowley comes into his sightline, and looks a little startled to see him), making some sort of a date, for an hour that suggests the angel’s _forgotten_ a little something.

“Oh – Crowley. I didn’t expect you till later. I must have been off woolgathering.”

The angel’s been known to put down roots in his chair if there’s a problem to figure out (an Antichrist or an obscure manuscript to turf up, for instance), but so far as Crowley knows he’s got nothing like that on right now. What he _does_ have right at the moment is a date with Crowley, for a light supper before the theatre, one of the rare ones they completely agree on – _Pirates of Penzance,_ because nothing lightens Crowley’s heart like stupid farce that pokes fun at windbags (he’s very sorry that W. S. Gilbert never got to meet Gabriel or Sandalphon, for two), and Aziraphale thinks the melodies are sublime of their kind. “We’ll just make our reservations if we leave now.”

“Crowley, we didn’t make reservations.”

“I just made them happen on the way in.” Crowley waggles thumb and finger in an eloquent gesture.

“Oh – perhaps you could unmake them? I’ve got some things to sort away around here, and you know, neither of us really _need_ to eat. Perhaps a nightcap after.”

The fussing the angel’s doing around his desk doesn’t seem to amount to much. Crowley pretends to look around the shop. “What was that on the phone?” he finally finds himself asking before he can stifle it.

“What was what?”

“For tomorrow afternoon. You forgot we’re supposed to talk to the estate agent?”

They’re all in on the cottage, and agreeing to own it together was a moment that Crowley hugs to himself when he can’t do that with the angel, because it means they’re an _us_ , that they didn’t come together just to make an end run around the Four Horsemen but to stay together for good. He knows the angel’s head is cooler than his, but hoped that didn’t apply to his heart. He tries to tell himself he’s overreacting.

“Oh – my dear. I completely forgot. Well – I suppose I can call my – tailor back.”

“Tailor?”

“For a fitting. These are getting a bit loose.”

It’s true, the angel’s trousers no longer have that bespoke look of having been made on his comfortable frame.

“You could miracle them.”

“It wouldn’t be the same. There’s nothing like traditional English tailoring. Go on out front, I’ll take care of it and be right along.”

Crowley goes on out front. He thinks he hears Aziraphale reset the date for seven bloody o’clock tomorrow morning, and assumes he’s imagining things.

* * *

But when he wakes up to early sun in the windows the next morning, the bed is distinctly angel-deficient and there’s no sound of movement in the flat. It’s their running joke that Crowley would rather sleep than, well, _almost_ anything else and that the angel can’t find enough hours in the day for his blessed books, but when he slouches into the sitting room, making incoherent noises that are meant as a morning greeting, there’s no one there either. He’s distilling a particularly brutal carafe of Italian roast when the door opens. Aziraphale is as free to come into the flat as the sun, and it usually feels the same way. There’s a queer hollow feeling about it today. The angel looks a bit flushed, and a bit surprised to see his demon afoot at this hour.

“Early for a fitting,” says Crowley. “Man must be devoted to his craft.”

“Ah – well, I didn’t even think you’d be up. As little time as possible out of our day.”

“I’ve got some apple chausson for you, it’s in the fridge. I’ll put on the kettle.”

“Oh dear – you know, Crowley, perhaps you oughtn’t to _tempt_ me so much.”

“What else do I _do_?”

Aziraphale kisses him when he bends his head down for it, but everything feels a bit off, like a film where the dialogue doesn’t sync with the lips moving on the screen. He burns his mouth with the coffee, and angrily leaves it that way.

There is _something_ here that does not add up.

* * *

It gets weirder when he realizes that Aziraphale is actually _using_ the cell phone that Crowley got him as something of a we-saved-the-world-I-love-you present, wanting there to be a way they could stay in touch all the time (the horrible hollow feeling as he staggered out of that burning bookshop is never going to leave him, even if Adam remade it from the ground substance of the universe), and which Aziraphale accepted with a kiss but never remembers to charge up and forgets to keep in his pocket.

He’s using it now. The blessed thing makes a couple of successive _pings!_ when they’re walking through Regent’s Park a few days later, and Aziraphale actually _pulls it out_ of his pocket instead of complaining about the interruption and thumbs a short flurry of characters onto the screen. Crowley’s aware he’s looking at him a bit balefully as the whistling _send_ noise squirts up.

“Tailor,” says Aziraphale. “Just a question.” He’s about to pocket the phone and pauses, asks, “Didn’t you say you can set this thing to not _make_ that noise? It just – hums, or something?”

Crowley takes the phone from him and sets it to Vibrate. In a heroic defiance of his fundamental demonity, he doesn’t try to surreptitiously read the texts.

Oh, next time he’s going to.

* * *

And the angel’s been undressing in the dark. This borders on the absurd. Crowley realizes it’s been going on for awhile; they’ll be dallying, lips to fingertips or heads together and hands wherever, and when things start to heat up to the point that clothes are becoming a nuisance, he miracles off the lights. He’s still an absolute Charybdis in the sheets, Crowley wonders sometimes how he exists in that shop full of combustible material without igniting it all over again, but he finds himself looking at Aziraphale’s neck for love bites he didn’t put there (he knows it’s a taste) or… well, what is he not supposed to see? A tattoo?

It’s beginning to seriously fuck with him.

And that’s before he catches sight of his angel in St. James’ Park, dressed to look like anything on this green precious earth but his angel.

He slinks behind a tree, feeling a little besmirched by his own furtiveness. Aziraphale’s just come into view, with a brisker than usual gait that slows as he continues across the park. He’s got on the universal outfit of modern anonymity – some team T-shirt or other (his arms are thick and freckled and magnificent and Crowley wants to scald each individual eye that has glimpsed their exposed lusciousness) and sweatpants, plus a bandana that hides most of his beautiful halo of blond hair, and fucking _trainers._ He didn’t think the angel even acknowledged the _existence_ of trainers. So far as he knows the brogues that match that beige suit have been consistently miracled back into newness since sometime in the 1920’s. The Aziraphale he knows would be recognizable in a crowd of a thousand; this one’s so skulkingly indistinguishable that if you weren't Crowley, who'd spot his angel anywhere, you’d forget you ever saw anyone. Which he suspects is the point.

There’s an obscenely buff, chisel-featured young man slowing to a walk alongside him, with the too-perfect-to-be-real look that belongs to combat-fit military men, firefighters, film stars. They both look a bit flushed. The Buff Bastard is wearing a cutoff sweatshirt that flashes his dazzling abs at passersby. Crowley feels immediate loathing and snaps his fingers inconspicuously. The Buff Bastard yips and hops onto one foot.

“Ouch, hamstring,” he hears the Bastard say in a blatting American accent. “Guess you made me work today. Next time maybe I’ll show you how to roll me out.” Whatever that means; imagination offers cruel possibilities. “You gonna be ready for it Friday? Same time?”

He can’t hear Aziraphale, because his angel speaks in normal modulated tones of voice and not the revolting hail-fellow-well-met bro-dude cadence of Buff Bastard. He considers the other hamstring.

“ ’kay, A. Z. Got something new to try on you… think you’re really gonna like it.” And the repugnant individual actually _reaches out_ in front of God, the ducks and everybody, and gives Aziraphale a too-familiar pat on the stomach, right where Crowley likes to rest his head after he’s… god _damn_ it… “Man, likin’ what I see here. Till later.” And he holds up a palm, which the angel _meets with his own_ before turning away, looking faintly exhilarated.

Crowley includes slow dismemberment in the list of things he contemplates adding to the hamstring pull. The Bastard is not only putting hands on his angel, but Aziraphale is apparently _off his food_ over whatever is going on here, and when has that ever happened?. He realizes he’s actually dug his fingers into the tree bark. He repairs it with a quiet miracle and waits with his back against the tree, which in fairness did nothing to anyone, until he’s sure there’s no mufti angel in sight.

* * *

He knows now that Aziraphale cultivated dalliances at the Hundred Guineas back in the 1890s, and that it likely wasn’t a first for him – you could tell just from some of the frankly hair-raising things he does in bed, which would make even a geisha or an Athenian hetaera sit up and start making notes. But Crowley’s been able to salve that bruise by reminding himself that up to that point, and for long after, he’d been hiding what he felt, that he’d been in a decades-long snit at the time (not least _because_ of hiding what he felt), and Aziraphale could be forgiven for wondering if he’d ever come out of it.

This is different. He’s got Crowley _right there,_ with nothing, at last, to stop them from any demonstration of what they mean to one another. If he’s developed some sort of taste for mortals that he’d been able to indulge quietly until they became closer, and that a demon can’t make him forget, Crowley’s not sure if he’s going to end up discorporating or reducing the buff blond Yank soldier or rent boy or whoever he is to component atoms. He remembers that the Portland Place club kept a stable of men like this, mostly young recruits who weren’t too nice to exchange their attractions for a little coin. Normally he’d be all for this kind of thing, but not when it involves his angel. He steams and rages inwardly and spends all evening drifting from one Soho dive to another, submerged in the pounding sound of the dance bands, thwarting pick-up attempts and scuppering promising drug deals and taking any other petty revenge he can on the local humans for his own misery.

He stays out, crisscrossing the humming streets, until he spots a light going on in A. Z. Fell’s, some time handily after midnight.

He goes back to his Mayfair flat alone. It echoes. It never used to echo.

There’s a bottle of Saint-Emilion on the sideboard, with a note: _Miss you but I know how you like a little bebop sometimes. I’ll be at the shop._

He doesn’t go.

* * *

He wakes up for the third time when the sun is well past the zenith and rinses out a mouth that tastes like the bottom of a birdcage. Somehow, not sobering up and letting what he’d drunk between one club and another (and another) work its villainy on him seemed like the punishment he deserved for ever being enough of an idiot to think that an _angel_ would be content with him. His pit-blasted eyes, his volatile heart, his half-serpent nature.

On the other hand, Aziraphale isn’t being honest with him.

They’re going to have this out.

He’s been made free of the shop, as Aziraphale’s been made free of his flat, and it seems that still applies. Only there’s a heart-sinking, rhythmic sound coming from overhead, not unlike sounds he’s remembered them making together (the first time, the bedstead _and_ the wall it kept banging into both needed a minor miracle).

The sound isn’t random or brief. It keeps going, covering the sound of his feet on the spiral staircase (which a nice person wouldn’t climb, towards what’s going to be a scorching horrible confrontation that’ll gut him like a fish, that he’ll never be forgiven for, but he’s not _nice_ , and he’s going to do it). You turn East at the top of the staircase, the angel showed him how a long time ago, there’s a fleeting miracle you have to do, and then he’s slamming the door of the angel’s flat _fracasso_ against the wall and –

There’s no off-duty American soldier, or footballer, or rent boy. There’s just the angel, in a ridiculous sweat suit, lightly glazed with perspiration, eyes wider than quoits, mouth open in shock, holding the end of a rope in either hand.

The penny drops. Possibly an entire pound coin.

Crowley closes the distance between them in two strides (the usual clutter of stacked first editions and multi-volume memoirs has been extruded to leave a little clear island in the middle of the carpet) and grabs Aziraphale by both shoulders, resisting the urge to shake him until he rattles.

“ _Angel, what the fuck are you doing?”_

Though it’s perfectly obvious. He’s jumping rope.

“Ah –” Aziraphale tries in a small voice. “I, um, thought you must have stayed out last night and slept in, and I didn’t want to bother you, so I thought I’d get in a little cardio – “

“You don’t have to do anything for your heart. It’s an artifact. We’re Celestial, it’s just decorative anatomy." He does give Aziraphale a little shake, then. "Is your _head_ cut? Do I need to get on the blower to Raphael?”i

“Ah – yes, but this corporation does react to things just like the human kind up to a point – and, well, I started to think I’d gotten a bit carried away over the years with all the indulgences, it’s certainly a little – well – _squashier_ than when it was first issued, I suppose Adam just restored what I lost in translation, and …”

Crowley utters something a lot more like the growl of a large dog than he ever imagined himself producing. He’s got the sweatshirt fisted in both hands now and is close to lifting the angel off the floor with it.

“And you were going to sneak up on me with the _buff new you_?”

“Well – I _was_ a little afraid you'd think I was being silly but I did want to –– well, be a bit more – _attractive_ for you – “

“Have I shown any sign of _not_ being attracted?”

“Um – could you put me down? My arms are going numb – well, no, but – “ Crowley realizes he can’t feel his hands much anymore either, and puts him down. “I don’t think you’d actually seen me without clothes since the baths of Caracalla, and I’ve definitely put on a bit since then, I started feeling a little embarrassed for you to see me like that, so – “

"So you hired a fucking loudmouth Yank _trainer_ to chase you around the duckpond." It's all falling into place. Normally Crowley likes Americans, with their brashness and neophilia. but that one's earned a permanent, violent exception. Aziraphale's still babbling, it's not clear if he's even listening, and Crowley shuts him up in the only obvious way.

“You idiot angel.”

Aziraphale doesn’t have an answer to that, but Crowley shuts him up again anyway, just to be on the safe side.

“You know, you’re as strong as an angel _is_ \-- "

"It was a little hard to keep him from noticing that -- "

" -- and you don’t need to be any shape other than the one you already are.”

“But wouldn’t you rather I were a little… ah…?”

Crowley leans in until the angel's eyes have to cross to stay focused on him. “Who is it that I can't keep my hands off? Who have I wanted for _sixty bloody centuries_? Perfect” _– smack –_ “beautiful” _– smack –_ “you.” The smacks occur because Crowley’s dropped to his knees to push up the be-dratted sweatshirt and plant a series of kisses on the angel’s round, plush, slightly jiggly stomach.

Aziraphale finally remembers to let go of the jumprope.

“Look, if you've decided you _like_ this sort of thing, there’s nothing in the world I’d rather see you do than _enjoy_ things. ‘ S’what I love about you. But not to beat yourself up. And for Satan’s sake, _let me see you_ when we fuck _.”_

The angel always shivers when Crowley uses the word as a proper intransitive verb.

“Also, whatever you do, stay away from those treadmill thingys. One of mine from the get-go. Been driving the mortals crazy for decades with ’em.”

“As a matter of fact, Tad said – “

“ _Tad?_ His name’s _Tad_?” Because of course it is.

“My trainer – “

“Right, got that now. Next time you want to slip something past me, angel, will you kindly remember that I came _this close_ to miracling him into Beelzebub’s candy dish? Or going full boa constrictor just to watch his eyes pop?”

“You, ah – oh dear – I see – “

“When I see you in the park with what looks like one of Michelangelo’s models the first thing that comes to mind isn’t _physical fitness._ ”

“Darling, I’m so sorry.”

“You should be. I expect a week of spoiling.”

“Oh – my dear. Just tell me. Anything.”

Crowley’s still got his face against all that lush angel and is making a short wish list fairly evident, but for clarity’s sake he lifts his head and says, “For starters, take off that ridiculous kit so I can show you how beautiful I think you are. And – no, first call _Tad,_ or text him or whatever it is you do, and tell him to fuck off until the next century or so.”

“I thought you said – “

“He _pawed_ you _._ Sorry, angel, can’t stand it.”

“I suppose I could – ooh, not while you’re doing that – “

“Well, all right. This first.”

* * *

“It’s still bothering you what that wanker Gabriel said, ennit?” Aziraphale had told him about the encounter – Gabriel jogging past him in the park right before Doomsday, bouncing him about losing the gut and getting into tip-top smiting form.

“Well, it did make me think a bit. Once it was all over and we -- ”

“Angel. Could we _possibly_ focus on the material truth that Gabriel is, in fact, a _wanker?_ Who beat up on you for sixty centuries because you were too nice to tell him to go fuck himself with his own herald trumpet? I’m going to be ages getting rid that load of old cobblers they put in your head.”

“Are you the one having problems with anatomy now?”

It takes him a moment. Aziraphale’s expression radiates deadpan innocence. After all this time, he _can_ still slip one past Crowley.

“Edgy for you, angel. C’mere, I think we need to try that again.”

_finis_

* * *

i  Traditional angel of healing. Obviously in this fic I reject the theory held by some that Crowley was Raphael before he Fell.

**Author's Note:**

> The final trigger for writing this was glancing to one side while I was doing some brutal things with kettlebells in the gym and seeing a guy who was, swear to God, a _dead ringer_ for Michael Sheen's Aziraphale (light grey hair vs. blond, but otherwise the same length and curl), solid, round, thick-thighed, doing a sweaty bout of mat work with a Swiss ball between his knees. I had to stop myself from goggling and restrain the urge to snap a photo, put it on Tumblr and say "Am I the only one who sees this?" (I think you get thrown out of the gym for that kind of thing.) And the fic wrote itself in my head on the spot, feature me dashing notes down in my workout diary between sets...
> 
> Disclaimer: For much of my life I have actually been Tad, or I hope a less arseholesque version thereof, to include training for bodybuilding competition back in the day (don’t ask to see my abs right at the moment) and triple-bodyweight lifts. I also love and lust for someone who’s Aziraphale-shaped. Which made this especially fun to write.
> 
> If you liked, share, reblog, comment! Authors are always thirsty :)
> 
> Come say hello on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


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